“Unless you were one of the poor reporters who had to yo-yo between Las Vegas and San Francisco this week, you may not have noticed a hidden message in all of the hoopla over the new Apple iPhone,” Michael S. Malone writes in a commentray for The Wall Street Journal.
Malone writes, “Apple Computer (make that Apple Inc. now) deliberately counterscheduled its annual MacWorld Expo — and its important new product announcement — directly against the Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s biggest consumer-electronics convention. Apple was sending a message that not only does it not inhabit the same universe as the rest of the consumer-electronics world (even Microsoft felt obliged to attend CES), but that its announcement would trump anything coming out of Vegas.”
MacDailyNews Note: “‘We’ve always had our event in the second week of January, beginning on Monday. They’re the ones who changed the date,’ said Mike Sponseller, a spokesman for IDG World Expo, operator of Macworld,” Dawn Kawamoto reported for CNET News on January 13, 2006. “CES, which usually kicks off around the second weekend in January, had to go with its 2007 dates because of its contract with the convention center in Las Vegas, noted Leah Arnold, a CES spokeswoman.” Full article here.
Malone continues, “And it did. The blogosphere lit up the moment Steve Jobs took the stage. On places like Fark.com, the usual fights broke out between the eternally moonstruck Macolytes (more cruelly, ‘Macsturbators’) and the increasingly jealous Apple-haters. CNN, as is usual with Apple, turned its news coverage into a day-long iPhone flack.”
Malone writes, “Mr. Jobs is the most paradoxical of creatures. On the one hand, though time and mortality have mellowed him, he remains something of a monster. If, like me, you grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school, interviewed him in the early days of Apple, and even wrote a book about him and his company, there will always be things about him that are unforgivable — cruelties and manipulations (especially to Steve Wozniak), early crimes (illegal telephones, ironically), megalomania, and an unquenchable need to take credit from others (Do you know who led the original Mac team? Invented the iPod? Devised the new iPhone? I didn’t think so) — and that no achievement will ever erase.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh great, a Wall Street Journal commentator with an axe to grind.
Malone writes, “Yet there is no denying that Mr. Jobs is a business genius, the greatest marketer of our time, the most charismatic figure in electronics history. And he is the only really interesting person left in high tech, once the liveliest, most maverick corner of the industrial world. Sometimes, he seems like the only guy left in tech who’s having fun. Of course, there are also the products themselves. The iMac, the iPod and the new iPhone are, whatever the flaws, masterpieces of industrial design and enlightened human interfacing. They make competitors’ products — even when they’re better machines — seem plodding and prosaic. So even if Mr. Jobs shamelessly steals the limelight from his subordinates, we have seen, and hope never to see again, what Apple looks like without him.”
Malone writes, “This week, Mr. Jobs showed just what he can do when he’s in good health and sitting on a cool new product. There were great products at the CES, but after Tuesday no one noticed. The iPhone, which won’t be shipped until June, suffers from a number of classic Apple-under-Jobs weaknesses: not enough memory, probably not enough battery, a comparatively large (though wonderfully thin) case, a touch screen that will infuriate cell phone users and scratch up like the early iPods, and an unpopular distribution partner (Cingular). And the iPhone is stunningly expensive ($500 plus a two-year Cingular commitment).”
Malone writes, “But who cares? As Mr. Jobs said, the iPhone is going to revolutionize the phone. Not because it offers anything fundamentally new, but because it brilliantly ties together nearly all of the currently disparate portable consumer tech functions into a single exquisite package driven by a powerful and intuitive interface. But that’s only part of it. The iPhone will transform the market because unlike other tech mavericks who try to push the envelope, Mr. Jobs can introduce the iPhone, even in a clumsy, overpriced 1.0 version, and trust that the army of several million Apple true believers will rush out and buy.”
“For all his demons, thank God for him in this age of cookie-cutter CEOs. For a decade now (and for another decade at the beginning of the PC age) he has run the most enthralling and rewarding show in high tech. Let’s hope he gives us at least one decade more,” Malone writes
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whoops, scratch “Wall Street Journal commentator” stuff and make it “royal asshole with an axe to grind who writes schizo commentaries for which the normally-sane Wall Street Journal actually pays him and then, incredibly, publishes.” Note that Malone praises sporadically in order to grant himself license to demean with what he thinks is impunity. We moonstruck Macsturbators hereby revoke your license, Mr. Malone.
We won’t even bother asking why he describes the iPhone as “clumsy,” how he knows all about iPhone touchscreens, batteries, and memory without ever touching one, or why he can’t understand that people, sorry “Macsturbators,” buy Apple Macs and other Apple products simply because they are markedly better than the alternatives.
Only God knows what he thinks Steve Jobs did to him that caused such obvious and deep-seated emotional scars.
We can only surmise that Malone wants this cruel monstrous Jobs creature to continue manipulating his army of eternally moonstruck Macolytes for as long as possible, so he can continue working on his pathological hatred issues in public by staining the pages of The Wall Street Journal with his festering bullshit.
Let’s Google a bit, shall we? Here are some quotes by master prognosticator Michael S. Malone from his article “Apple R.I.P.” published by Forbes on October 5, 2000:
• Steve Jobs can’t run companies… Why is he a poor CEO? Because he’s mercurial, insufficiently engaged by the more boring (but crucial) operations like distribution and, ultimately, because he’s a pretty nasty piece of work.
• Apple is a small fish, and the pond is going dry… Now that Apple has upgraded its customer base it has no place to go. And to make matters worse, the rise of personal digital assistants, palmtops, embedded controllers, etc. promises in the next few years to render the PC industry into a backwater business filled with commodity products–hardly the place to be a pricey innovator.
• Cool people, Apple’s market, are already bored with the iMac. Thus, Jobs created an insatiable hunger for novelty that now even Apple, even with its splendid new cube, can’t satiate. In the process, he hastened the entire personal computer industry towards its end… having hastened the end of the desktop PC era, Steve Jobs has put Apple again in a precarious position. When the end does come, the big companies will have the necessary capital to transition into the multitude of new industries that will evolve out of the PC. The products of these new markets will be, thanks to Apple, stylish and beautiful. What an irony it will be if Apple, cranking out ever-less profitable commodity iMacs, its stock depressed, cannot afford to follow.
Malone’s crystal ball is as cracked as his head.
Contact info:
Wall Street Journal Comments and Feedback: newseditors@wsj.com
Michael S. Malone at Forbes: mmalone@forbes.com
Michael S. Malone at AOL: msmalone@aol.com
Malone is just pissed because he can’t find anyone to squirt with his Zune.
Whoever wrote this needs thearpy.
And actually, Jobs isn’t a business genius, he’s a design genius, and that is what endears people to Apple products.
Hey guys relax!
Let’s all come out with Tshirts with something like ” I’m a proud and happy Macsturbator!!”
Jokes can hurt much more that serious word, beside that MDN did a great job finding that old article…
The majority of journalists these days are just prostitutes…
take it easy!
Malone’s quote slightly modified to make it accurate:
“Cool people, Apple’s market, are already bored with the [iMac] commodity PC. Thus, Jobs created an insatiable hunger for novelty that now even Apple…can’t satiate. In the process, he hastened the entire personal computer industry towards its end… having hastened the end of the desktop PC era, Steve Jobs has put [Apple] Dell again in a precarious position. When the end does come, [the big companies] Apple will have the necessary capital to transition into the multitude of new industries that will evolve out of the PC. The products of these new markets will be, thanks to Apple, stylish and beautiful. What [an irony] a relief it will be if [Apple] Dell, cranking out ever-less profitable commodity [iMacs] PCs, its stock depressed, cannot afford to follow.
Well, he’s got a point, doesn’t he?
I mean, don’t we all jerk off on our Macs?
I always rub my “little tone” when I watch Steve’s keynotes.
“Macsturbators” is funny.
That said, I thought it was CES that kept changing its schedule in order to take some of the shine from Macworld?
Can anybody post the last 7 or so years of dates for both CES and macworld??
I don’t Macsturbate. My mom said it would stunt my growth.
TT…no I don’t rub my little Tone. I rub my big BUSTER
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Before beating up on Mr. Malone, read the full article. MDN leaves out some significant points. Like: “More than one Silicon Valley leader privately muttered that for the sake of high tech and American competitiveness, it might be best if the feds just forgot all about the matter.” (of stock option irregularities) Seemed like a pretty good article to me.
I thought it was an article that was very complimentary to Apple products, and tho he obviously doesn’t love Steve Jobs, sounds like he admires him and is amazed by him. He wonders about the possible negatives of the iPhone. These are all things we all wonder about.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty good article. Your extracts from other articles were very telling. Could Malone be coming around to our side?
To the idiots who think that since Malone wrote some nice things about Apple, Mac users, Jobs, etc., it’s just hunky-dory to call people blind followers and cruel monsters, MDN said it best:
Note that Malone praises sporadically in order to grant himself license to demean with what he thinks is impunity.
I’m a certifiedI-wanker
By the way,if you wanna know who created Adobe Photoshop, just read the splash screen when you launch the application. I like to see those names every time. It reminds me that a few dozen real people made that possible.
OSX doesn’t even, to my knowledge, have an easter egg where you can see who’s responsible.
Do we all really have to love the Finder?
I do, but I respect your right not to.
I wrote the following letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal. While I found Malone’s article at times amusing and entertaining, I was equally insulted by what he said about a Mac user, and more important, offended by his freedom to play fast and loose with the truth. Below is a copy of my letter:
Editor
Wall Street Journal
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to respond to aspects of an article by Michael S. Malone, “iGenius” that appeared on page A15 of today’s Wall Street Journal (Thursday, January 11, 2007). Malone is a colorful writer, but frankly, I found myself offended by some of what he said. I use a Macintosh and a PC in my daily work, but I found myself offended by his use of the term “Macsturbators” – not only is it derogatory but inappropriate for a publication of the stature of the Wall Street Journal.
As I read the article, I could see that Mr. Malone had his say regardless of his playing fast and loose with facts. He made accusations about Steve Jobs, the new Apple iPhone and the MacWorld event that veer sharply from the truth. For example, Mr. Malone accused the organizers of the MacWorld show of deliberately staging the event’s timing to conflict with the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Not true. The MacWorld show has been held in the first or second week of January for as long as the show has been held. In point of fact, the CES show has shifted its dates closer to the start of the year, not the other way around. Further, Apple does not organize the MacWorld show. While the company is the centerpiece of the event, IDG, a large publishing, IT analyst research and event promotion company, not Apple is the owner and organizer of MacWorld.
If your editors had closely reviewed the details of Mr. Malone’s article and given it the scrutiny that it deserved, a number of his claims would have been edited and corrected. They were not. As a consumer, it’s insulting for me to see an authority figure such as a published journalist not doing basic fact checking before submitting his writing to his editors to review, and even more so when his editors fail to do their job of fact checking and editing out assertions and claims that have no basis of truth. When I can do research of my own and learn that a number of assertions from Mr. Malone were either inaccurate or flat out wrong, I lose confidence in the very credibility of your publication. I look to the Wall Street Journal for facts on which I can make investment decisions and better understand businesses. And while I found Mr. Malone’s article entertaining, I am as upset with you, the editor as I am with Mr. Malone not doing basic homework, much less taking liberties with facts in an effort to add more attitude and flair to his writing.
Is a “facts be damned, full speed ahead” attitude what we can expect as the new standard from the Wall Street Journal? I certainly hope not. The equity value of your publication is based on how your public perceives your credibility to report truthfully and objectively. While lively writing might be entertaining, if your writers lose sight of the truth and put their subjectivity and prejudices ahead of their responsibility to be objective, you will have done your readers and the subjects of your articles an incredible disservice.
Is it too much to ask for basic objectivity and fact checking? This should be your prime objective. It’s journalism 101.
Further, articles that play fast and loose with facts and are more filled with invective than reporting could be extremely damaging to a company like Apple, and have material impact on the company’s earnings. I live in fear of the potentially destructive power of the media to influence the public through persuasive yet dishonest and misleading articles. Never forget that truth must always be your objective. When this is lost, or even worse, when the goal of your writers is to undermine the truth with persuasion, rancor and subjective prejudice, you have crossed a dangerous threshold. It is the job of the editor to temper the passions of your reporters and commentators, so that truth is not the victim of their writing flair. You owe your public that much. If you do not, the very freedom of speech we are privileged to enjoy could be threatened.
I hope you will dwell on my words. And I hope that you will share these thoughts with Mr. Malone and others like him. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Whatever, he’s one that I’m sure was on themacobservers Apple’s dead list. Apple time and time again has proven ass holes like Malone totally wrong and the iPhone is no different. There are ten times as many stories telling the tale of WOW!, INCREDIBLE!, SPECTACULAR!, BRILLIANT!, in describing the iPhone.
He is a dying breed like Dell who thinks they are brilliant yet they are the dull boring types and there totally jealous of Steve and Apple Inc.
Smoltz, perhaps you would also like to comment on MDN’s approach to pulling out selected quotes from the article and using them as the basis for their response? Perhaps you can explain why quotes which highlight a different view – within the same article – are ignored. Perhaps you can also explain why MDN criticises Malone’s journalism in this story while not wishing to uphold those lofty ideals itself? Criticism of the media is required, but it has to be valid criticism otherwise it’s just fanboy whingeing. MDN (validly) pointed out some inaccuracies but then played the ball and not the man and that just makes it look like a thin-skinned insecure child.
A CES honcho said he moved his date to the 2nd Tuesday to give his exhibitors “breathing room” after the New Years holiday. Can’t the WSJ get C|Net on their ‘puters?
Actually, there are more than several accounts of how SPJ used to behave during his CEO 1.0 phase and none of them paint the guy in a particularly good light.
However, whilst he may still be “highly-strung” (according to the Time article that MDN referenced earlier in the week) and quite demanding, his demeanor during the Version 2.0 of his Apple career appears to be more collegiate and – since the brush with cancer – more willing to see life in its proper perspective.
For evidence of that change, you could – were it possible – look at any Stevenote over the last several years and witness SPJ requesting that the members of development teams present stand up so that they can receive their moment of adulation from the “congregation” (in ancient Rome, they would probably have arrived in chariots and someone whispering their ear – fortunately, San Francisco traffic makes the chariot thing a little impractical).
Also, his acknowledgement on the value of family support and what appeared to be near emotional exhaustion at the end of Tuesday appears to show that he is, quite simply, a man who probably wishes that his professional life didn’t take such a toll on his personal life.
I have a theory – based on my own experiences – that basically posits that each of us has a finite amount of creativity (or drive to create) before we simply burn out and the elegiac vibe I got from watching the end of the keynote was that SPJ realises that iPhone may well be the ultimate (or penultimate) “paradigm shift” of his professional career.
“Who at Adobe created Photoshop>”
Adope had nothing to do with its original development. Like many things in the PC world, it was bought from another smaller company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_PhotoShop
What a whack job this freak is.
Well grease me up and call me Susie! I love to macsterbate!
And actually, Jobs isn’t a business genius, he’s a design genius, and that is what endears people to Apple products.
Well, that’s an overestimation. Steve hires design geniuses. Actually, Apple HR hires design geniuses. The important thing is this: Steve has vision. That and he is CEO of a company capable and willing to execute that vision. That’s not to say Steve doesn’t have any input, it’s just that a project is started and designers design and Steve (or the project manager) makes the executive decision on which design to go with and maybe suggests some tweaks.
I think attribution of credit gets confused with team endeavors, like saying Michael Jordan won all those championships for the Bulls. It’s an oversimplification and the basic human nature of hero worship. Every team has a front man but the front man is not the team. Besides, every keynote I’ve watched where Apple releases some major new project, Steve has always given recognition to the team by having them stand in the crowd (even so far as asking everyone else to sit down in this last one) and encouraging a round of applause for them.
And honestly, I don’t think Steve is any CEO savant. I think he is very capable. His is what we should expect from the vast majority of CEOs.
I think I hurt myself macsterbating tonight. WHooooo…
first off-that wasn’t me at 8:31. I guess some kids got grounded from their Xbox and couldn’t be original.
Sounds to me like this reporter made a pass at Steve, who didn’t take the, uh,bait. Hell hath no fury like-oh, it’s a man?